Soliloquy
by xiwang.love
Summary: Set after Chris-Crossed. Chris reflects on his reasons for coming back to the past and everything that has led him to this moment.


**Soliloquy**

Author's Notes:I loved the character of Chris, and I think he was one of the best things to happen to Charmed in a long time. This is a reflection piece that takes sometime after _Chris-_Crossed. One of the lines in this story was inspired by Paper Pieces' _Memories_. Reworked 12/24/11.

**x**

"So where's our neurotic Whitelighter today?" Phoebe joked, glancing around the room.

"Oh, he's somewhere in the house. Probably checking the Book of Shadows for what might be the fiftieth million time," Piper said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She bent over Wyatt in his playpen. "Hey little guy," she cooed, reaching for him.

Phoebe frowned. Chris had been unusually quiet in the recent weeks following his brief sojourn to the future. The death of his fiancée had clearly dealt a hard blow to the young Whitelighter (half-witch too, she reminded herself, making a mental note to investigate _that_ particular tidbit later on), and whatever he'd seen in the future had badly shaken him.

"I'll go look for him," she volunteered, heading for the stairs.

Chris let out a groan of frustration and pushed the Book of Shadows away from him on its podium, glaring at it fiercely. He massaged his temple, trying to alleviate the massive headache he could feel coming on. _I'm running out of time here,_ he thought anxiously. _I can't believe this. I came all the way back here to save Wyatt and now I'm stuck trying to make sure I'll at least exist in this timeline before I can focus on anything else! _He'd been startled a few days ago to realize that the date of his conception was fast approaching, and he'd been wracking his brains since then trying to figure out a solution to the tangled web he'd created in coming back to the past; namely, his parents' separation.

There were days when he just wanted to give up and surrender to the utter futility of it all, pass the burden on to someone more qualified. _I'm twenty-three years old and I've spent eight years of my life trying to save my older brother from the destructive path he chose, trying to save the world from the man born out of a union from the two most powerful magical beings of good!_

In his darkest hours and at night, when silence and solitude were his only companions and all he could focus on were the whirling tide pools of dark thoughts that swam around and around in his mind, and the exhausting failures of the day and the endless lists of thing still to be done suddenly crashed into him, he wanted to scream and cry and beg for an end to all of it, to run and hide away in some remote corner of the world until it was all over.

But he couldn't, because giving up would have meant the deaths of the thousands, if not millions, whose lives depended on the success of this crazy mission, cooked up by his best friends, whose sanity even he wondered at. But then, all of them had had to surrender at least a part of their sanity and push trivial things like morals and ethics to the very backs of their minds in order to survive the hellish existence that had become their lives after Wyatt took over. This was the same man whose room Chris had shared for the first seven years of his life, his brother, whom he went to for advice on girls and pretty much everything else, the one person he should have been able to trust unconditionally. Instead, the half-Whitelighter, half-Witch proclaimed to be the greatest being of good ever born had become the ruler of all darkness, more powerful and darker than even the Source had ever been in his prime.

He wanted to laugh and cry at the sheer insanity of it all. He'd traveled back to the past to a time before he had even been conceived, where no one knew who he was and where he struggled everyday to maintain a detached distance from the people he'd loved and known all his life. Sometimes he vaguely wondered how on earth he had managed to avoid a nervous breakdown thus far. _I guess Mom and Dad's stubborn genes are manifesting themselves_, he mused wryly.

Then he pushed the thought away. It was still too painful to think about his mother, or even what his father had become after her death. Losing Piper had destroyed Leo and though he had little sympathy for the man he regarded as father in only the biological sense, he could not help but grieve for the breakdown of their family, which had been torn asunder by Wyatt's embracing of his darkness - the sisters dead, Leo god knew where, Chris and his grandfather and their friends in hiding, organizing a resistance as best they could against Wyatt.

And Bianca, beautiful Bianca who'd been sent by Wyatt to seduce and kill Chris and instead fell head over heels for her intended victim. Bianca, the fiancée he'd lost ultimately to Wyatt, killed for refusing to help turn Chris. _"Haven't we been here before?" – "Maybe we will be again." _Somehow, some way, in the new future he hoped to create, they would find each other again and he would never let her go once he had her in his arms.

But if he couldn't get his act together, with the deadline fast approaching, the very real danger existed that he might not even be conceived if he couldn't find a way to push Leo and Piper together for one last reunion, disconcerting as the thought was to him. And if he wasn't born in this timeline, he would cease to exist and everything they had worked so hard for, all their efforts and the myriad sleepless hours of planning and strategies, would be for nothing because there wouldn't _be _a Chris to travel back to the past to prevent the origins of Wyatt's darkness.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the negative thoughts and failing miserably. The only emotions he felt now were bitter disappointment and frustration. It hurt, more than he would ever admit publicly, to realize that his own family didn't trust him. The memory of the love in those eyes that he'd clung to so fervently, night after night for so many years, had been replaced by wary suspicious and distrust. Without any familial ties, he was simply just another Whitelighter with suspect motives and an almost neurotic tendency bordering on paranoid obsession. Was it better to have only the memory of their love, or their distrust in full flesh? It was a question he asked himself constantly, and one that he had yet to find the answer to.

He let himself slump against the wall, staring out the attic window, the evening's last rays of sunlight falling upon the mahogany floor. He'd traveled back to the past to save Wyatt and he'd only ended up screwing everything up spectacularly. The sisters and Leo obviously didn't trust him - they tolerated him at best and that wasn't saying much, Piper and Leo were separated so his own existence was in danger, and he was no closer to figuring out what he turned Wyatt evil. And Bianca…he saw her face every night in his dreams, heard the whispered words she spoke, remembered memories from happier times that now seemed so distant, still haunting him, unwilling to let go. And perhaps that's all that they – his mother, his aunts, Bianca, a whole slideshow of the smiling faces of those lost in the war against Wyatt spun across his mind's eye - were now: ghosts, lingering memories who still held sway long after their deaths.

_Mom. I need you. I'm not strong enough to get through this on my own. I need all of you. Family always sticks together, right?_

But she hadn't been there for him for a very long time. He'd grown up in the eight anguishing years since her death. Her loss had been almost unbearable, but he'd managed to survive on his own, hadn't he? Leo, Paige, and Phoebe disappeared or died soon after, and then it was just him and Victor, trying to get by as best they could in the face of Wyatt's betrayal.

The unbidden memory of Piper's furious demand rose up in his mind… _Chris, we don't need your help. I will get my son back, and when I do, I don't want see you anymore._

His own mother didn't trust him and her rejection stung the most, the sharpest cut of them all. All his life, he'd been surrounded by his aunts and his mother, who showered their love onto him, and to return to a time when they didn't even know him for who he truly was, was slowly eating away at him.

_She's not your mother, though, _his mind argued. _Not yet. And even if I had already been born, she still wouldn't be _my_ mother_.

The Piper of his time had died when he was fourteen years old and that had been the beginning of the end. Leo, torn with grief over his wife's death, had gone on a rampage throughout the Underworld and abandoned his sons. Wyatt had become colder and more power-hungry with each passing day and Chris had been helpless to stop him.

_Stop thinking such depressing thoughts,_ he scolded himself. But it was growing harder and harder each day not to remember the chaos and turmoil that had permeated every aspect of day-to-day living in the future. His stomach clenched, remembering the last time he'd seen Wyatt, in the brief disastrous return to the future when he'd been forced to leave a dying Bianca to Wyatt's mercies. Wyatt had seemed so much more colder than ever before. Chris had searched desperately in his eyes for any sign of the brother he'd grown up alongside with and idolized, but there was nothing to be found, not even a single trace of humanity, leaving himself to wonder at times like these if there was actually anything left fighting for, if this jaunt into the past was nothing but an exercise in futility.

_I've been living a lie for almost a year now_, Chris thought, letting his head fall into his hands wearily. _I've become a stranger to my own family, and the ironic thing is that I planned it this way, back when Bianca and I were talking it over. I didn't realize how hard it would be to keep everything a secret, or that it'd be even harder to know they don't trust me._

He sighed_. I'm going to save you, Wyatt, _he promised as the sun fell below the horizon and the shadows settled upon the world. _I'm coming home to the brother I used to know - dead or alive - it doesn't really matter anymore. I know how indifferent and terrible that sounds, but that's the hard cold truth of it. I just want you – our family – back, no matter how much it costs._

"Hey," a voice called out, jerking Chris out of his reverie. He looked up to see Phoebe standing in the doorway of the attic, arms folded across her chest. She peered more closely at him. "You doing all right?" she asked, concern on her face.

Chris scrambled to his feet. "Yeah, I'm good," he said, deliberately taking the time to brush the dust off his clothing.

Phoebe watched him silently. He suddenly seemed young – _too young_ – for the burdens he had taken upon himself. But he honestly seemed to care about saving Wyatt from whatever evil had befallen her nephew in the future. He cared enough to come back all the way to the past, and that was good enough for her.

"I'm always here if you need someone to talk to, Chris," Phoebe said. "I'm not one of San Francisco's hottest advice columnists for nothing."

Chris had to laugh. "Phoebe, you give advice on love," he reminded her wryly. "Not on how to deal with traveling twenty years back into the past to save the future." It touched him that she cared enough to offer, and he felt his spirits rise just a little. He loved both of his aunts, who had doted and spoiled him like crazy as a child, and he was relieved to know he was regaining a little of their trust. _One step at a time_, he told himself.

"Well, maybe it's time I expand my horizons," Phoebe joked. "I _am_ an empath, you know."

"How about a rain check?" Chris suggested, though he knew that in all likelihood it was one he would probably never take up on. "I've got some demons to check out tonight."

"The offer's always open," Phoebe said, turning to go back down the stairs. "You be careful, mister," she added over her shoulder. "If you need help, you come here. No more of this solo business. We all know how that turned out the last time." She stopped, whirling around in time to see the smile vanish from his face.

"Oh God, I'm sorry, Chris," Phoebe said, clapping a hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean to – "

"No – I – it's okay," Chris said, shoving his hands into his pockets, forcing a weak smile. "I mean, all right, it's not, but that's why I'm here, right? To stop it from happening." He saw the disbelieving look on her face. "Really, I'll be fine, Phoebe, I promise."

She nodded, albeit reluctantly, and he watched as her back vanished around the curve of the staircase. He exhaled deeply, raking a hand through his hair._Time to go, the demons are awaiting._

He looked back towards the attic, at all the many years' worth of accumulated memories and treasures that were scattered around. Generations of Halliwell women had stood upon this very spot, leafing through the Book of Shadows, making potions and creating spells…preserving a future for their descendants. He had many fond, and not-so-fond childhood memories of this attic, lazy afternoons and bleak rainy days spent here with his mother, his aunts, his brother, and even his father once. He didn't intend for Wyatt and himself to be the last of their line, not if he had it his way.

_This is what I'm fighting for, _he thought resolutely. _So I won't have to hide from my family anymore. To save Wyatt and our family, to safeguard a future for ourselves…to see Bianca again... _He closed his eyes and disappeared in a cloud of sparkling blue orbs.

**x**

Review is love.


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